Fallout: New Vegas, the RPG from Obsidian, released two years after Bethesda’s Fallout 3 and has since become a cult classic and an inspiration to almost all Western RPGs. While the limited development time culminated in a buggy launch and elicited negative responses from players, modders have come to the rescue and fixed almost all of it, even creating tons of new content that have kept the game alive. It’s wild when you think about it – a single-player RPG with a healthy player base even after 12+ years of its release!
We have compiled a list of mods for your first Fallout: New Vegas playthrough. These will keep the vanilla gameplay intact while fixing all game-breaking bugs and adding some quality-of-life improvements, so as to ensure your Courier has a hassle-free experience in the Mojave.
Yukichigai Unofficial Patch – YUP
Mod created by Yukichigai (Nexusmods)
This mod encapsulates fixes to almost all bugs, exploits, and other such issues with Fallout: New Vegas and is a baseline requirement of most other mods. In the words of the mod author,
“If it’s broken, YUP probably fixes it.”
Unofficial Patch NVSE Plus
Mod created by The UPNVSE Pals (Nexusmods)
If you are familiar with modding in any other Bethesda RPG, you have likely heard of the term “script extender”. Essentially, it can go down to the engine level and access stuff that other non-script extender mods cannot. The Unofficial Patch NVSE Plus is an assortment of all bug fixes associated with the New Vegas Script Extender.
Uncut Wasteland
Mod created by sandbox6 (Nexusmods)
As most of you probably know, Obsidian had to make significant cuts to the scenery and clutter in order to support the struggling consoles after the game’s release and to accommodate the DLCs that were to follow. This mod puts all of the worthwhile cut content back.
FPGEL – Functional Post Game Ending Lite
Mod created by AVeryUncreativeUsername and Kazopert (Nexusmods)
Without delving into the spoiler territory, all you need to know is the vanilla game ends with the final quest, the credits roll, and you can’t go back into the world unless you want to start a new game. This mod lets you play the game after the final quest, akin to how most open-world RPGs function these days.
JAM – Just Assorted Mods
Mod created by yvileapsis and others (Nexusmods)
This is an assortment of neat little quality-of-life improvements to Fallout: New Vegas and makes it feel less like a 12-year-old video game. The mod brings a multitude of modern additions, including sprinting, bullet time, hit markers, visual objectives, dynamic crosshairs, weapon wheels, and loot menus, among others.
Recommended mod manager for Fallout: New Vegas
The first and foremost rule of thumb regarding video game modding is to read mod descriptions attentively, so as to ensure you go through all the requirements and other compatibility issues.
Coming to mod managers, Mod Organizer 2 is the gold standard for modding all Bethesda RPGs. While the interface takes some time to get used to, it is the most feature-rich mod manager out there and will take care of all your modding needs.
The next best choice would be Vortex, the official mod manager of Nexusmods. It is a worthwhile option if it’s your first time modding.
